I know were very excited over last nights results. We came into the evening expecting Barack Obama to lose by 100 delegates, and he came out of the evening slightly ahead. Even though Obama beat generous expectations, the media believed the hype and the crazy polls (silly Zogby), and expected more in some cases (such as victories in MA and CA).
But with news today of Hillary Clinton's self financing, and cutting of staff pay, along the shifting media narrative that the Clinton Campaign is in trouble, there may be a tendency to rejoice a bit too much.
I implore you to be cautious about this turn of events.
Remember after Iowa, when the whole world was ready to declare the Clinton Campaign dead. Well there is a large degree of sympathy in the electorate for the Clintons. Despite the vehement anti-Clinton feelings of some in the netroots (perhaps myself included), most democrat primary voters would be happy with either Clinton or Obama as the nominee. Democrat primary voters don't want to see Hillary Clinton unfairly treated and they don't want to see this contest declare her end in shame.
Please keep the focus on the issues. As Barack says, we should keep the focus on why we should elect him, and not just win at all costs.
But at the other end of the celebratory spectrum, just because it is true that Barack Obama has an advantage in most of the remaining contests this month, doesn't mean it's a good time to sit on our hands.
The campaign always needs resources:
You can help by donating cash
or by donating your time calling supporters in Washington State an Louisiana for Saturday's contests
and if you live nearby, I'm sure lots of support is need on the ground.
Don't try persuading super delegates, it would probably annoy them.
Barack Obama is set up to win a good many primaries and caucuses in the near future, but lets not get side tracked by the Hillary Clinton is imploding meme. Now that were up, lets get out there with the same message of hope that we had when we were down. This is a battle of winning supporters and delegates, and were not gonna change many minds by focusing on the Clinton campaign finances or what the latest poll numbers are.
When in doubt always remember.
I chose to run because I believed that the size of these challenges had outgrown the capacity of our broken and divided politics to solve them; because I believed that Americans of every political stripe were hungry for a new kind of politics, a politics that focused not just on how to win but why we should, a politics that focused on those values and ideals that we held in common as Americans; a politics that favored common sense over ideology, straight talk over spin.
Lets not forget the message in the coming weeks.